


the seeds i've sown

by evewithanapple



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 16:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4356026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/pseuds/evewithanapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The baby doesn't seem to like her any more than she likes it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the seeds i've sown

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning for . . . uh, pregnancy? Parenthood? Weird feelings thereof? I'm not really sure how to warn for this, guys. Basically this fic contains people having complicated feelings about their offspring, which might be upsetting or cathartic, depending on the reader.

It seems to Dag as though time grows slower as her pregnancy advances, the sun lagging in each new journey across the sky. She hauls buckets of water up and down stairs, kneels in the blistering heat to plant her seeds, and all the while her skin stretches painfully and her back aches and she’s too hot- hotter even than the sun and sky would make her. The kind of heat that comes from an unwelcome body inside hers’, growing and giving off warmth she doesn’t want. She’d rather see her seeds.

When the time finally does come- and it does, as all things must, even though it seems to her to have taken far too long- she’s taken to their old rooms, which have since become a home for the sick and injured of the Citadel. Capable and one of the Vuvalini, Netta, kneel by her feet and occupy themselves with the business of helping the child out into the world, though Dag wonders sourly why it can’t help itself. Cheedo sits behind her, one skinny-but-strong arm around her ribcage, saying encouraging things in her ear. Even Toast- who’s given Dag a wide and wary berth since her pregnancy began to show, and Dag doesn’t blame her for that in the slightest- stands guard outside. It’s a long, bloody, painful affair, and more than once she spits out that it isn’t fair; Joe’s dead, his body left for crows to peck at, so why should she still have to endure what he forced on her? Capable pats her leg and tells her _not much longer_.

When the thing is done and the child is finally out of her- Cheedo stroking her hair and telling her what a good job she’s done- Capable looks up and smiles. “It’s a girl,” she says, and takes the baby in her bloodied hands, wrapping it in a long strip of cloth and handing it up for Dag to inspect. She takes the child, and stares at it. It’s smeared all over with blood and birthing muck, and even under that, the skin is red and bumpy. The head is round and soft, like a spoiled cabbage, and the face is all over wrinkles, like she’s an old woman instead of a newborn. It’s impossible to tell much more than that, besides the fact that there are a few strands of pale, downy hair on her head- it could be from her mother or her father, Dag doesn’t know- and the eyes are blue, though she knows that’ll probably change after a while. She read it in one of Miss Giddy’s books.

“She’s beautiful,” Cheedo says, leaning over her shoulder. She kisses Dag’s cheek. “She looks like you.”

Like _her_? Dag can’t see any of herself in this little goblin, and more to the point, she doesn’t want to. The baby doesn’t seem to want anything to do with her either: even in her arms, it’s still stiff and screaming. She hands it back to Capable. “Not much to look at,” she says curtly.

Capable doesn’t say anything, but wraps the baby up and takes it away. The Vuvalini woman is still busy: it seems the process of birth isn’t over yet. Dag lies back and wonders how much more this child will demand of her.

* * *

 

“Don’t trouble her too much,” Capable warns Cheedo on the first day, after the baby’s been cleaned and fed and put to sleep in her cradle. “She needs to rest.” So Cheedo stays away for the first few days. At loose ends at first, she soon finds there’s more than enough to keep her occupied: helping Toast in her new mechanical room where she takes apart cars and builds them into new things, running errands for Furiosa and the council she’s set up with representatives from the Wretched and the Milking Mothers, watching carefully over Dag’s garden while she’s still unable to rise from her bed. She thinks Dag will be pleased to know that her plant-children are safe while she tends to this new, fleshy offspring. Cheedo had siblings, once; she remembers how often they cried in their first few months, how often her mother needed to rouse herself to look after them. Of course, Dag has Capable and the other nurses, but Cheedo thinks it still must be a daunting task.

Sometimes- because she can’t quite resist- she slows her pace as she walks by Dag’s room, straining her ears to hear what’s going on inside because she misses the sound of her voice. She doesn’t hear much, beyond the baby’s fitful cries, and sometimes quiet breathing when both mother and child are asleep. On the third day, she pauses. The baby is crying again- screaming, really, with all the outrage her newborn’s lungs can muster- but there’s nothing else, no voices or movements or anything to suggest that the room is otherwise occupied. It’s not likely, she thinks, that Dag could sleep through all that noise, but it is possible; and if she’s asleep and there are no nurses, who’s there to make sure the baby is all right?

She pushes the door open, and steps cautiously inside. She was right: there are no nurses there. Capable and her helpers must be elsewhere in the Citadel, called away by another emergency. She can see small fists risen above the rim of the cradle, flailing angrily in the air as the cries grow louder. She thinks the baby must have heard her entrance and intensifies her efforts: _you’re here, now look after me!_

“Here for a visit?”

Cheedo startles. She hadn’t looked at the bed at first, but now she does, and sees the ends of Dag’s silver-white hair spilling from the sheets. She’s wrapped up tightly, only her head poking out, and her smile is sardonic. “Or did Junior there get your attention?”

Cheedo goes over to the cradle and reaches in, picking the baby up. The screams dim to unhappy whimpers as she cradles it against her chest. “She’s all wet,” she says. “That’s why she’s crying.”

Dag just shrugs. “She cries all the time. It’s hard to keep track.” She lets out a long exhale. "Had enough of people screaming for me to take care of ‘em when old Joe was still around.”

Cheedo, still holding the baby close, crosses over to sit down on Dag’s bed. She tugs the swaddling back a bit so that she can see the baby’s face properly: it’s still bright red and wrinkled, though it looks a bit less bumpy than it did on that first day. “Did you give her a name yet?”

“A name?” Dag repeats. “What kind of name should I give her? She’s not even a person yet, really. She’s just a lump.”

Cheedo looks back down at the baby. It’s true, there’s not much to distinguish her at first glance; Cheedo hasn’t seen that many babies in her life, let alone living, healthy ones, but they all resemble each other at first. Looking more closely, though, she can see traces of what she’ll be later on: wide eyes and a pointed chin and round cheeks. Still next to no hair, though, and her gaze seems to wobble, like she hasn't yet caught the trick of focusing on any one thing at a time.

Dag sits up a bit, the neck of her dress shifting down. Her breasts, Cheedo notices, look rounder than they did before, and the nipples are an itchy red colour. "Do they still hurt?" She remembers the early days, before Dag's stomach started to grow in earnest, how she'd hiss and pull away when Cheedo touched her; she'd been sore all the way through.

"A bit," Dag says with a sniff. "Nipples, mostly. And they leak all the time." She levels the baby with an indifferent look. "She never drinks, though. At least, not from me. I guess my milk must be sour. You'd think she'd stop crying for it, though, if it tastes so nasty." She stretches her legs out in front of her. "You know they had to sew me back up after they pulled her out? She ripped me clean open. Capable says I'm not to get out of bed until she says, so I'm stuck in here-" She nods at the baby, "-with that. Don't ever hear anything but screeching."

That reminds Cheedo that the baby's clothes still need to be changed, before she starts to cry again. So she sets her down carefully on the bed and rummages underneath it until she finds a passable cloth to wrap her in. The baby doesn't cry while she's changed, though she kicks her legs a bit and pops her fist into her mouth. Dag watches it all, still impassive. "She likes you, I guess."

"She'd like anyone who cleans her up," Cheedo says, lifting the baby back up into her lap. Dag just shakes her head with a little snort.

Cheedo looks at Dag more carefully. Her eyes are shadowed with bruises, like she hasn't slept in days, and her mouth is turned down at the corners. She thinks of offering to hand the baby to her, but then thinks better of it. "I could take her for a while," she offers instead. "So you could sleep. If she's not feeding from you, she doesn't have to be with you, always."

Dag shrugs again. "Do what you like."

What she'd really like is to crawl under the sheets of this too-narrow bed, put the baby down between them and nestle herself into Dag’s shoulder, like they did in the time before when it was the only brightness she could find. But she doesn't really need that anymore: the world is brighter all over, and she's not the one trapped in a little room with a reminder that screams all day. It's her turn to be leaned into.

"I'll be back later," she says, and leaves.

* * *

 

The first person she wants to find is Capable, who spends most of her time tending wounds and sickness among the Wretched. To Cheedo's surprise, she doesn't find her there: not at the med station she set up, not moving amongst the clusters of tents, not even at the water station where everyone lines up for their daily rations. Netta is handing out water, though, and she looks thoughtfully at Cheedo when she notices the baby. "Mothering her now, are you?"

"Just for a bit," Cheedo says. "Have you seen- ?"

"Your ginger girl?" Netta jerks her head. "In the council room with Furiosa."

"Thank you," Cheedo says, hugging the baby a little closer. She sets off again.

She gets to the council room just as their meeting is ending, and the representatives- chosen by vote from among the Wretched, the War Boys (those who stayed after Joe's defeat) and the Milking Mothers- are filing out the door. She hovers in the entranceway, nodding to each of them as they go by until she spots a flash of Capable's fire-bright hair and Furiosa's metal arm. Then she squeezes her way through to see them.

Furiosa notices her first, brow furrowing slightly when she spots the baby. "That's . . . new."

"It's the Dag's," Cheedo explains. "I've just taken her for the day." She addresses her to Capable, who is also frowning slightly. "You've got to let her outside. She's miserable in that room."

Capable frowns. "She needs her rest."

"She can rest outside, can't she?" When Capable doesn't say anything, Cheedo presses on. "Just a few hours a day. Let her see the sun, and her garden. It's dark in there, and there's nothing for her to do or see, and she _hates_ it."

Capable looks at Furiosa, who shrugs. "You're the nurse, not me." She holds out her metal hand over the baby's head, and she makes a grab for it with one of her fists. She misses by a mile, but Furiosa just chuckles and lowers her hand until the baby can grab it. "Strong little thing, isn't she?"

"Like her mother," Cheedo says. She turns to Capable. "It's not good for the baby either, never having fresh air. Even just putting them in a room with a proper window would help. _Please_ , Capable.”

Capable hesitates for another long moment, chewing on her lower lip, before she sighs. “All right, then. You can take her outside tomorrow. _No_ extra exercise, though, and absolutely no going up or down stairs.” She gives the baby’s head a pat. “And make sure there’s a nurse before you do it.”

Cheedo nods. “I will.”

Her next stop is the Dag’s garden, which is further up on the Citadel- the part that Dag can’t climb to, on Capable’s orders. Cheedo’s quite sure that that’s why Capable made sure to specify- otherwise, she’d want to go running up to check her plants as soon as she was freed from the sickroom. She’d fretted endlessly about the garden, starting when Capable first insisted that she stay indoors waiting for the baby to come. It had led to more than a few noisy arguments, but Cheedo understood. The plants were her children, too.

She arranges the baby in a sling, so it’s nestled against her chest and she has both hands free to tend to the plants. She doesn’t pull any up- she doesn’t know nearly enough about gardening to tell which are weeds and which are vegetables- so instead she just waters them, pats loose earth down with her hands, and flicks away bugs where she finds them. Her face is shaded from the sun by a wide-brimmed hat, the same one Dag uses when she’s up here among the green. The shade from the brim also covers the baby, who gurgles quietly to herself while Cheedo gardens.

“Your mother planted all these,” Cheedo tells her as she takes up the hose again. “She can tell you all their names, and where they come from, and what you can do with them once they’re ripe. Most aren’t from here.” When the garden had first been planted, many of the seedlings had withered under the blistering sun. Dag hadn’t been discouraged; she’d coaxed some back to life, and laid the remaining seeds aside until she could fashion a suitable environment for them. Toast had helped, putting together structures that kept some of the plants in shade and helping Dag set up a greenhouse for the more fragile ones.

“Ask you to look after the plants, did she?”

Cheedo looks up; Toast is standing in the doorway, a grease-smeared towel flung over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised. Cheedo stands up, dusting her hands off on her dress. “She didn’t,” she says. “But I thought she’d feel better if someone did.”

“She’s not feeling good?”

Cheedo shakes her head slowly.

“Figures.” Toast perches on one of the benches, one knee drawn up to her chest while the other leg dangles down to the ground. “I wouldn’t either, I had one of those things on me all the time.”

‘Those things’ is the baby. Cheedo looks down at her. “She’s not so bad.”

“ _She’s_ not,” Toast says. “But her father was, and you know that’s all Dag’s gonna remember. All any of us can.”

Cheedo says nothing. She remembers her early days among the other Wives, how they’d clustered around her whenever Joe came to visit, how they tried to shelter her from what was happening to them. Back then, she’d not realized the truth of who they were, what he wanted of them; she’d just thought he wanted pretty things to decorate his Citadel. The truth hadn’t come until later. Still, she’s started to sift through her memories of those days, picking out the happy times and letting the cruelties fall by the wayside. Letting herself hold on to Dag’s jokes and Capable’s stories and Angharad’s fierce protectiveness, and washing the rest out with the tide.

But she doesn’t have to bear the reminder.

“You want one of those?” Toast asks, and Cheedo starts. She was nodding at the baby. Cheedo looks down at her. “I- I never thought about it.” An odd omission, given that her fertility was the reason she’d been chosen in the first place. But the idea of actually having a child of her own had never quite seemed real. She touches the baby’s head softly, running her fingers through the fair wisps of hair. “I guess- I’ve got her, haven’t I?”

This baby isn’t Cheedo’s, not really; she didn’t help create it, and there’s no stamp of her features on its face. But Dag did. The baby is Dag’s as much as- more than- it is its father’s, and Cheedo loves Dag. If the baby is part of Dag, doesn’t that mean she loves the baby too? Isn’t that worth more than planting the seed that made her- having a hand in how she grows?

“I guess you do,” Toast says, still eyeing her warily. “She got a name yet?”

“Dag hasn’t given her one.” Cheedo looks down at the garden bed at her feet. “Says she’s not a person yet.” She bends down, touching one of the fuzzy green leaves. “I guess she’s more of a seed than a plant. A seedling?”

Toast shrugs. “Seems like as good a name as any.”

“I didn’t mean-” But now, looking back down at the baby, it makes sense. She is like a small seedling, just emerging from a protective pod, fragile and ready to bend in adverse weather unless someone moves to protect her.  It’s a good name for Dag’s daughter; Dag who loves growing things but doesn’t quite love her daughter yet because she grew too close, and from too blighted a seed. Maybe this will help her see clearly.

“Seedling,” she says aloud, touching the baby’s forehead. Seedling makes a little snuffling sound, sucking on her fingers again. “It’s a good name. Thank you.”

“Yeah, well,” Toast says. “Just don’t ask me to pick her up any time soon.”

Cheedo smiles, hugging Seedling close. “I won’t.”

* * *

 

Her last stop before taking Seedling home is to the Milking Mothers. She thinks they must have seen her before- _someone_ must have been feeding her, if Dag can’t- but she doesn’t know for sure. Either way, Seedling’s started to whimper, which Cheedo thinks probably means she wants her dinner. Even if the Mothers haven’t fed her before, she knows they won’t turn her away now.

When they first re-took the Citadel and everything was upside-down, Furiosa had told the Mothers that they could stop giving milk if they wanted. Some had taken her up on it, but others refused. They’d pointed out that there were still babies in the Citadel who would go hungry for want of milk unless someone else stepped in to tend to them. Besides, they liked nursing; they’d been doing it for a long time, and they liked the purpose of it. So they still lingered in their old rooms, nursing the children who were brought to them and busying themselves with weaving cloth and making clothes when there were no babies on hand.

The first Mother Cheedo sees takes Seedling from her without any preamble, putting her to her breast. “Orphan, is she?”

“No,” Cheedo says, “but her mother can’t feed her. She says her milk’s gone sour.”

The Mother makes a wry face. “I’ve never yet known a woman whose milk sours in the breast.” Seedling’s already latched on, and is sucking busily. “First baby?”

Cheedo nods. “And her father isn’t- he wasn’t a good man.”

“Hmm.” The Mother looks thoughtful. “Could be the little one knows her ma doesn’t want her. They can always tell, and it makes them nervous.” She jostles Seedling a bit. “Tell her to give it some time. Not all women take to it right away. Takes practice.”

Cheedo’s not really sure what practice might entail; Seedling seems to be doing most of the work. But the rest of what she’s said makes sense, so she nods. “I’ll tell her.”

“Good girl.”

When Seedling’s done eating- the Mother shows Cheedo how to put her over her shoulder and pat her back so she doesn’t hurt her stomach- Cheedo takes her and carries her back down the stairs to Dag’s room. The baby’s sleepy now, milk still around her mouth, but she blinks every few seconds as though she’s struggling to stay awake. Cheedo hugs her and calls her silly, and Seedling makes a disgruntled gurgling sound in response.

When she pushes the Dag’s door open, she’s sitting up in bed. She already looks better than she did: she’s wound her hair back in a braid so that it’s no longer clinging to her face and neck. She smiles when she sees Cheedo. “Capable came by to give me the news,” she says. “Thank you.”

“It wasn’t any trouble,” Cheedo says. Seedling still in her sling, she crawls onto the bed, settling in next to Dag. “You both need the fresh air.”

Dag glances down at the baby. “Did she cry?”

“She fussed a little.” Cheedo reaches back to undo the knot holding the sling together. It ended up being heavier than she’d expected; her shoulders have started to ache. “But mostly she just slept. She’s a good girl.”

“Hrm,” is all the Dag has to say to that. “And she’s eaten?”

Cheedo nods. “I spoke with one of the Milking Mothers. She said sometimes it takes practice to feed them right.”

“Dunno what kind of practice she means,” Dag says with a little half-shrug. “If the milk’s bad-“

“She says it’s not,” Cheedo says. “That milk doesn’t go bad like that.” She hesitates. “She says maybe if Seedling-“

“Who?”

“Oh!” Belatedly, she realized she forgot to explain the new name. “Toast and I thought of it. I know you couldn’t think of a name for her, but I was up in the garden, watering the plants, and I thought . . .” She touches Seedling’s head. “She’s a bit like one of your seedlings, isn’t she? Just starting to grow.”

“I know what to do for a plant,” Dag says, voice slightly unsteady. “I dunno what I’m supposed to do with her. And plants have uses- you can eat them, mash them up and drink them when you’re sick, put them on burns. She’s just-”

“She’s part of you,” Cheedo says gently. She scoots down the bed a bit, bumping her shoulder against Dag’s. “And you’ve got lots of uses. She will too, when she’s bigger.”

Dag leans her head on Cheedo’s shoulder, tracing Seedling’s features with her finger. “Or she could take after her dad.”

“She won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because . . .” Cheedo looks at Seedling, and then at her mother. “Because you’re here, and he’s not. And I’m here too, and Capable and Furiosa, and Toast. She isn’t going to know anything about her dad. She’s gonna know about us, and Angharad-” A little quiver goes through Dag’s body, “-and how we dug your garden. No matter what she looks like when she gets bigger, she’s going to _think_ like us. Isn’t that the important part?”

The Dag sniffs a bit. “She still looks like him to me.”

“She won’t always,” Cheedo says. “You’ll see.” She slips her hand around Dag’s and holds on tight. “If you can’t believe it for yourself, then believe me.”

The Dag gives her a bit of a smile. “Well how can I say no to that?”

Between them, Seedling hiccups slightly, her blinks becoming slower as she settles into sleep. Cheedo leans her head against the Dag’s, letting out a little sigh of her own. The baby will undoubtedly wake them some time in the night, demanding to be fed or changed or cuddled, and there’ll be more hard work to do in the morning. But for now, the Citadel’s lights are burning low, and both Dag and Seedling are warm and solid beside her. For now, they can sleep.


End file.
